Memorabilia king Phil Castinetti holds a letter signed by Ted Williams in which the Red Sox legend wrote that he wanted his remains to be cremated.

'91 letter: Ted Williams wanted to be cremated

By Laurel J. Sweet

BOSTON HERALD

January 04, 2010 - 7:39 AM

New England's king collector of sports memorabilia has hit one out of the park with his newest attraction: A signed letter by Red Sox slugger Ted Williams insisting he be cremated.

“It is my wish that no funeral or memorial service of any kind be held and that my remains be cremated as soon as possible after my death. I want you to see that my ashes are sprinkled at sea off the coast of Florida where the water is very deep,” Teddy Ballgame instructed his longtime Boston attorney and confidante Robert E. McWalter in the Dec. 19, 1991, missive. It was typed 11 years before Williams' death in 2002 at age 83.

“That's the real thing,” McWalter, who has the original letter in a vault, told the Herald after examining the copy acquired by Phil Castinetti, owner of Sportsworld on Route 1 in Saugus.

Williams, an avid fisherman, “used to say he wanted to give back to the fish some of what he took from them,” McWalter said.

Seeking to renew the hue and cry to free Williams from the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona, where he was cryogenically frozen and reportedly beheaded, Castinetti is putting the letter on display next to his copy of the 2000 soiled scrap paper on which the Splendid Splinter and his children John Henry and Claudia Williams allegedly agreed on biostasis suspension as their family plot.